Monday, October 23, 2006

Pulpit Crimes

I am scheduled to speak at the Alpha and Omega Pulpit Crimes conference in Orlando on November 2-3 along with Burk Parsons, David King, Don Kistler, Steve Camp and, of course, James White. The conference will culiminate in a formal debate between James and John Shelby Spong on homosexuality and biblical Christianity. James and I were supposed to spend one session of the conference discussing the debate on Baptists and Calvinism. Since that debate was cancelled, we will now spend that time discussing the arguments we would have presented had we been given the opportunity to do so. The link above will take you to the Alpha and Omega site where more information is available.

Dr. White sufficiently addressed your question on his blog this morning (10/24). The approach that has to be taken is similar to the debates with John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg last year in Seattle: find the root of their presuppositions and identify the falsehoods and bias that accompany their convinctions (or lack thereof). "Progressive Christianity", the term that Spong, Borg, and Crossan have chosen to describe the growing ultra-liberal movement, is the child of historical criticism and redactive methodology in an approach to interpreting Scripture. When debating or discussing matters with these folks, we can't assume that they have read "our side" to come to their conclusions.

JM:

Spong is quite influential and very well known among "Progressive Christians" and the GLBTG "Christian" movement. The ticket sales to the homosexual community have basically out numbered sales to conservatives by a two to one margain.

Many folks that have not ventured far out of their denominational strongholds do not realize the rising popularity of what has been termed the "Gay & Christian" movement. The following link is only a partial listing of homosexual churches within Florida:

http://www.gaychurch.org/Find_a_Church/united_states/us_florida.htm

Sadly, it has also been a trend for Baptist churches to allow membership to openly homosexual men and women as well (Although I haven't heard of any cases that have *stuck* in SBC Churches as of yet).

gunny: yes, the White/Ascol Liberty presentations should be wonderful. We plan to post them on the aomin.org site within days of the conference at no cost.

I worked at PC(USA) for 3 years and no one ever mentioned Spong. I'm familiar with More Light presbyterians. Crossan advertised for his spiritual renewal weekends in the magazines. I always see Spong books at remainder book stores. I took that as a sign that no one read his books. Maybe people do read him, but don't mention him in mixed company.

Spong is incredibly popular in the Episcopalian Church (Obviously, he was Bishop), Anglican Church, and United Church denominations. Janie Spahr is the currently the most influential GLBTG propenent in the PCUSA. Spong is also a fellow and influential member of the Jesus Seminar. However, when we challenged Ms. Spahr to debate three years ago, she immediately reccomended Rev. Spong. Also, of all the authors involved in the new "trajectory hermeneutic", Bishop Spong is by far the best well known.

Again, so far, the amount of homosexuals attending this debate outnumbers the conservative evangelicals 2 to 1.